Original Entry: April 29, 2008
McMinnville, OR
By faith
Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to
sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through
Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”
Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively
speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.
Hebrews 11:17-19
As a
fairly new follower of Jesus, I stumbled upon the passage where Jesus tells the
rich man, “Sell everything you have and,
then come follow me” (Mark 10:21).
My spirit began to prompt me to do the same so I proceeded to give my brother
all of my fishing gear, and gave my comic book collection to a teen in who
ended up selling them for drugs! Our
Campus Life Club was fundraising for our annual Catalina trip so I decided to
sell my beer stein collection (probably a good idea for a youth minster), my
knife collection (that was tough), my fishing poles (that was tougher), my
antique fishing reel collection and every other group of items I had collected
over the years.
Within
hours one Saturday morning I had nothing but my truck, my dog Jesse, my
clothes, my Bible and my guns.
“Oh, God,
please not the guns!"
Hesitantly I decided that if God wanted
my guns he could have them too. I needed
a sign. I needed confirmation. This was
big. I felt like Gideon in Judges 6: 36-40:
Gideon said to God, "If you will save
Israel by my hand as you have promised-- look, I will place a wool fleece on
the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is
dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” And
that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece
and wrung out the dew--a bowlful of water.
Then Gideon said to God, "Do not be angry
with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the
fleece. This time make the fleece dry and the ground covered with dew."
That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with
dew.
That
Sunday our senior pastor introduced himself to me and said, “Hey, I hear you
are a hunter, would you take me sometime?”
Thank you
Jesus!
Selling
everything I owned was radical, but sometimes God has us do the radical so we
can radically serve him.
The key to
being radical for God is trusting in his promises. Abraham trusted his God who had said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called”
(Genesis 21:12). God’s request to, “sell
everything” was substantiated with the promise “then you will find treasures in heaven.”
Weigh God’s
powerful whisper against His perfect word to decipher the will of God. Be
careful about hearing God’s voice in your selfishness, “God wants me to buy a
bigger house.” God gets lost in our
selfishness, but manifests himself in our sacrifice, “offer up Isaac.”
God will
never tempt a man to do evil (James
1:13) but He will test his heart, life, and faith. Just as He tested Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11) He will lead you into the wilderness from time to
time to test your faithfulness. He may
even ask you to raise your knife in a sacrificial offering to His will. What promise is attached to God’s Word that
is demanding you to lift the blade high in order to make preparation for a
personal sacrifice?
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of
God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to
God--this is your spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1).
